Subject
matter jurisdiction is all about limiting the power of the federal
government.There are two big political
compromises in the Constitution:

1.Creating
courts lower than the Supreme Court was left up to Congress.This was done to mitigate the concerns of
those who feared an overly powerful federal government.

2.If a case
doesn’t fall into one of the categories set out in § 2 of Article III, the
federal courts can’t hear it.However,
Congress can choose what jurisdiction to give to the lower federal courts.

Therefore,
federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.This leads to two questions:

1.Is the case at
hand listed in Article III § 2?

2.Has Congress
allowed the federal courts to hear such a case?

It’s
important to note that federal courts share most of their jurisdiction with
state courts.This is called concurrent
jurisdiction.28 U.S.C. § 1331
says that federal courts will have original jurisdiction[1]over any case dealing with the Constitution, federal statutes, or U.S. treaties.

28 U.S.C. § 1332
says that diversity jurisdiction is also concurrent.We definitely saw cases where people from
different states went to state court.

There
are also several areas of jurisdiction that Congress has given exclusively
to the federal courts:

Why
might Congress grant exclusive jurisdiction to the federal courts over patents
and copyrights but not over trademarks?Maybe trademarks tend to be more local.For example, you could have The Columbus Café™ suing The Café Columbus
(not ™) in Ohio courts, and that’s fine
because it’s a local dispute.However,
patents and copyrights are probably going to be used throughout the country and
it’s important that there’s no bias towards a local litigant.

What
are some reasons that an attorney or litigant might want a case either in
federal or state court and not the other?

1.Some federal
courts have a “rocket docket”!

2.A defendant
may get more sympathy from a local judge than a big city federal judge.

3.A federal
jury, which is drawn from a different pool, may be more or less likely to award
higher or lower damages.

4.A federal
judge may feel more secure in reducing a large jury award because he or she has
lifetime tenure.

5.A federal
judge may be more likely to enforce an arbitration agreement.

6.The opposing
lawyer may be more comfortable in state court than federal court.

Federal
judges are “shielded” in two ways:

1.Lifetime
tenure “insulates” them from political pressure.

2.Limited
jurisdiction “insulates” them from an overly broad caseload.

The
take-home message is that it matters whether you’re in federal or state
court, and that’s why subject matter jurisdiction is important.